


GOOG & YHOO: A True Story of Love & Hate & Betrayal

by fables



Series: Behind The Scenes Stock Exposés [1]
Category: Anthropomorphism, Stocks (Anthropomorfic)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural Differences, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Obsession, One-Sided Relationship, Other, Pining, Poor Life Choices, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Size Difference, Stockslash, Tragedy, UST, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, YHOO needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-21
Updated: 2004-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-28 05:10:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5079088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fables/pseuds/fables
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A behind-the-scenes expose tracing the heady first days of the GOOG stock offering, and how two of the largest internet companies went from prospective lovers to lifelong enemies.</p><p>This isn't an account that you will find anywhere else. There are many, many benefits to being the most used search engine in the world.</p><p>Also, heed the tags and warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	GOOG & YHOO: A True Story of Love & Hate & Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2004, though as far as I can tell, there have been no major changes in canon that have Jossed this? I mean, we all know by now that GOOG has gone places that YHOO can never hope to reach, no matter how much he tries. That whatever remaining feelings there are, they're now completely once-sided, since GOOG hasn't looked back since he left poor YHOO at the altar. But this was a tragedy from the beginning, so that is to be expected!

There are many ways to know and judge a man. Most people are content with just the appearance, believing, as the old maxim that many retail corporations hang their prospectuses on says, that clothes make the man. If that is the case, then YHOO is completely flawless. His clothes are always neat, suits impeccably tailored, gold cuffs with diamond hooks, ties that cost as much as the GDPs of minor countries. His features are sharp and cold, he appears always in control.

Other people believe that the best way to judge a man is by his stock chart. This is a slightly more revealing method, for we can track a person's movement since their inception, their ups and downs, the climax when they cross their 40-day moving average on the upside, the dizzying drop when the markets turn. 

YHOO's chart is almost frightening in its scale and intensity. In 1996, he starts out as a sleeper company, barely reaching a dollar a share. There is the dizzying climb up to $100 in the next four years, and we can only imagine what it must've been like, in those last heady days of the tech bubble: the vertiginous movement when wave after wave of investors pushed him up, and up, and up, with no reason or logic, just a burning wish to touch the sun. This was what the men who built the Tower Of Babel must have felt, this was what Icarus, carefully pasting feathers together, must have wanted.

It ended the next year. The investors were gone, the markets began their dizzying drop. In the span of only a few months, YHOO plummeted over ninety dollars. He was thrown against the rocks, the fall never seemed to end, the market gurus were predicting that he would die. 

At $4, YHOO caught a handhold. Some investors that still believed, or believed that they had lost so much that they just _could not_ lose anymore. It does not matter what the motivation was; what matters is that there were investors that held on and did not let YHOO go, at a time when all he had to do was look down to see the dead, broken bodies of those that had been his comrades.

In 2003, YHOO began his slow climb up again, dollar by dollar, hard and steady and unyielding, and the shorts gave way, and the investment banks and mutual funds and the small investors took notice again, and once they looked found that they couldn't tear their eyes away.

YHOO was once again a pillar of the NASDAQ, was once again soaring to the skies.

But while a person's stock chart is compelling, it tells us very little about his inner motivations, about what drives him. This is why some people think that to know a person, one must look at his SEC filings - his prospectus and 10K and 10Q forms. These tell us how he started, what he owns, what his goals are. 

Looking at YHOO's filings, we find that he started out from the humble beginnings of a Stanford University graduate project; that he is now an inextricable part of the NASDAQ, with annual sales over 1.6 billion. And looking at the companies he has acquired, it soon becomes apparent that his ambition is immense and magnificent. That he seeks to dethrone the God of the NASDAQ, MSFT itself, and fly to stock heights that no internet company has flown before.

Yet still there is something missing. We know all these things, but we still haven't found the core, the _essence_. And this is where we turn to the great teachings of our ancestors, which say that you can never know who a man truly is, unless you know his enemy. And this is where GOOG enters, stage left; this is where the real story begins.

 

Both GOOG and YHOO were born in the same place, in the same way - at Stanford University, conceived by two graduate students as a project for class. Both were in the same field, concerning themselves with the same activities. One would think that, as a result of all these similarities, the two would have liked, or at least understood, each other. (For after all, what are friends, but people we have accumulated shared experiences and interests with?) This, however, was not the case. YHOO had so much distaste for GOOG that he went out of his way to avoid seeing him, was even considering changing his living quarters to the NYSE when GOOG announced his intention to move into the NASDAQ. 

Perhaps it was GOOG's insouciance that did it; how he refused to conform, eschewing suits and ties for jeans and t-shirts; perhaps it was something as insignificant as the way GOOG kept his hair - deliberately long and dyed purple, completely against the unwritten dress code that every other Fortune 500 company and want-to-be adhered to. As if it didn't matter to him, what the establishment thought; as if he didn't _care_. 

Perhaps it was that no matter how hard he tried, YHOO never did succeed in ignoring GOOG, when before he had succeeded in everything he had set his mind to. (Aside from the Yahoo Premium Services that customers completely ignored, but that's best forgotten on everyone's part.) It was a failure that YHOO couldn't let go of; like the image of his dead comrades fallen in the abyss, it was something that he couldn't forget or forgive. And so he took an almost sadistic delight when the GOOG IPO seemed on the verge of failing, with rumors of SEC violations and a downgrade from the price per share of $135 to $85.

A few days before the GOOG IPO was to start trading, at one of the charity events YHOO attended (there are some things one must do to keep up appearances), YHOO ran into GOOG. He'd come to the computer room to check up on his stock price, and found GOOG there, head bent over the screen, fingers flying over the keyboard, a blue light washing over his pale skin. And instead of the anger and bitterness that YHOO usually felt when seeing GOOG, a great happiness seemed to well inside him. YHOO thought - now GOOG would have to acknowledge he had been wrong, to spurn the establishment so, to insist on a Dutch auction instead of working on the IPO with the investment banks. GOOG would have to admit that his way of doing things had caused more trouble than anything else.

And so he walked towards GOOG with a lighter step. "I'm sorry," YHOO murmured, taking a perverse delight in how GOOG's shoulders tightened at his voice, at the way his fingers froze over the keyboard midword. He leaned down over GOOG's chair, so that their faces were only inches apart. "Truly sorry about all the trouble you seem to be having."

"Hm?" GOOG said, and looked up from the computer. "Sorry about what?" His eyes, behind the glasses, were serene; there was an absent smile on his face. YHOO leaned back. Suppressed the urge to fist his hands.

"About the trouble your IPO is having. To have to downgrade from 135 a share to 85 a share --"

"I know what I am worth. Why should the price change matter? It is, after all, just a number on a ticker tape."

YHOO's eyes widened, unable to comprehend the sheer arrogance of those words. Did GOOG truly not care? Was he so idealistically blind that he did not see the abyss yawning under him, yawning under every publicly traded company (with the exception, perhaps, of the God of the NASDAQ, MSFT)? Investors could not be trusted, and once they let your stock fall - once they let go - there were no handholds you could grab on to, nothing to stop your fall into bankruptcy and death.

YHOO spoke carefully, slowly, as if to a small child that does not know that fire burns, his irritation gone in the face of such absolute irrationality. "There are consequences to what you are doing. The people you are turning your back to are people with power, the power to save you if you fall, the power to destroy you. Has no one taught you this yet?"

GOOG's smile widened. He pushed away from the computer. Tilted his head to the side. "Would you like to try?" he said.

YHOO froze. His mouth opened, closed again. The words were ringing in his head, drowning out his thoughts. Before he could formulate an appropriate response, others came, surrounding them. "You're on stage next, sir," one said, hooking a microphone on his collar, and YHOO let himself be led away.

He glanced back once, and saw that GOOG was still looking at him, his eyes uncharacteristically serious.

In the following days, the rumors swirled thick. People whispered that there had been merger talks between YHOO and GOOG. YHOO got calls at all times of the day from bankers and journalists inquiring whether this was true or not, until he snarled to his secretary "Fucking _hang up_ the next time," and began to seriously consider a hostile takeover of all the telecommunications companies in the Fortune 500, just to have the pleasure of killing them afterwards.

He was so distracted that he didn't even notice GOOG's steady climb in the stock charts, from $85 to over $100 a share. And so he was completely unprepared, the next time they met, for GOOG to say, "Say. Do you realize that now, I have a bigger market share than GM?"

YHOO blinked. Put his drink down on the tray that a server was holding.

"I just thought it was somewhat ironic," GOOG continued, "considering what we talked about the last time we met."

And YHOO said, carefully, "That wasn't all we talked about, if I remember correctly. If everyone in the world remembers correctly."

GOOG tilted his head. "Ah. So you've heard the rumors, too?" And there was something in the tone of GOOG's voice, the look in his eyes, that made the hairs on the back of YHOO's neck stand on end. He wondered, not for the first time, how far the benefits of having the most widely used search site extended. How simple would it be, to plant a rumor or two?

"It's quite preposterous, isn't it?" YHOO said carefully.

"Do you really think so?" GOOG asked, pushing his glasses up.

"If this is another of your games," YHOO warned.

But GOOG's eyes were completely serious. "All I'm saying is, maybe they do have a point. Your net income last year was 238 million, with a profit margin of fifteen percent. But there are still your beginning losing years to account for, the money you paid to acquire Inktomi and Overture, the 790 million long term debt you're still paying off. Your debt is crippling you. But I - YHOO, I have more money than I know what to do with, and with my technical expertise, your marketing abilities and customer base - there's nothing we might not be able to do."

YHOO's eyes widened. "Are you asking-"

And GOOG said, "Yes. If you will have me."

“I-I don’t-”

GOOG took a step closer. “I realize, it’s not an easy decision to make. Take the time you need to think about it. You know how to reach me.” He stepped away; with a smile, turned and left the party.

Once again, YHOO thought, GOOG had done the completely unexpected.

That night, YHOO could not sleep, considering all the possibilities, the impact of such an announcement, the likelihood of it. It was preposterous; it was insane; he should stop thinking about it; GOOG's name had become a constant mantra in his head.

Because the truth was, reason had very little to do with it. A large part of the resentment that YHOO had always felt towards GOOG was due to his fascination with GOOG, a fascination that almost verged on jealousy. But if they were one company, one entity, there would be no need for that. 

This thought mesmerized YHOO. That night, when he finally gave in to exhausted slumber, he dreamt of a love being consummated in a flurry of S-4 and 13D and 8K filings. What would their name be, he wondered? Would they be called YHOG? GHOO? A thrill went through his body when he imagined the new ticker symbol gracing the walls of the major stock exchanges.

The next day, he called Goldman Sachs to discuss the details of a possible merger; the day after that, he called GOOG. The news of their upcoming merger spread like wildfire through the investment community; the gurus stood shellshocked when they heard of it.

It was the headiest time for YHOO – like the tech bubble where his stock had climbed to over a hundred a share, but this time, he was the one that was controlling his flight; this time, he thought, there wouldn’t be a fall. The world seemed intoxicating, everything seemed possible, even flying to the heavens and unseating the gods.

But what of GOOG? What was he doing, what was he thinking during this time? What had motivated him to make this offer in the first place? If someone had asked, point blank, I doubt that GOOG would’ve been able to give a straight answer. “YHOO has experience,” GOOG might have said. “This merger would make us both more competitive.” 

But the real reason, the moment the idea originated, was the day that YHOO had cornered him at the charity auction. When GOOG had tilted his head and said “Would you like to try?”

Because no matter how self-assured GOOG might’ve looked, he still had moments of doubt, days when he was certain that he couldn’t live up to the hype that everyone had built around him. They said he’d come like a hurricane wind, out of nowhere swept through all his competition in the search engine field. But what next? On land, hurricanes never lasted long, fading back into the sky and air, leaving behind only a little wind and rain as the ghostly remains of a once unified, awe-inspiring force. GOOG did not want to disintegrate like that, to disperse into nothing; he was determined to cling to his vision and go forward despite the obstacles. 

But oh, there were such numerous obstacles! He stumbled so many times, for it was such a strange world he found himself in. When he heard that the SEC was investigating his IPO after the Playboy interview for violating the silence period, his first thought had been, “YHOO would never have made such a clumsy mistake.”

Because YHOO always seemed to know what to do, the right words to say to soothe worried investors, how to carry himself in board meetings and conferences. He always seemed to walk with confidence and power, was respected in a way that GOOG could only dream of being. YHOO had started the same way that GOOG had, but the world that GOOG found so strange was one he had mastered already. 

And so GOOG had asked YHOO for a merger, and YHOO had accepted, and there had been a few days of pure elation. The feeling a balloon must feel, drifting in the sky, that gravity doesn’t bind it anymore, that nothing can bring it down. And then the elation had been replaced by worry, by uneasiness. Because GOOG felt himself slipping away.

It was the little things, at first. An insistence on YHOO’s part that the major investment banks be included in their merger talks; his inflexibility on the issue of giving the analysts guidance for the quarterly estimates. And then it went on to bigger things – talk of tax shelters and loopholes and moving major operations abroad and the funding of lobbying groups and the creation of another class of preferred shares to be doled out only by the investment banks, things that GOOG would never even have considered, a few months ago, and he found himself nodding, found himself agreeing, because the arguments YHOO presented seemed so compelling.

The one thing YHOO had always been excellent at, GOOG reflected bitterly, was marketing – he could sell you sand if you lived in a desert, and make you grateful for it.

The fact is, GOOG also feared death, but of a different kind than YHOO. What he feared was the slow death, where your fingers go numb, and then your hands and your arms and legs, where the numbness travels through your body, until at last you forget what it is to feel in the first place, forget what pain feels like, or pleasure. What GOOG feared was the slow fading of the senses and self into nothing. And this was what he felt was happening then – he was fading into YHOO’s shadow, becoming something other than himself.

That night GOOG couldn’t sleep. The next day was when he would have to sign all the forms, making the merger official (they were thinking of going on a honeymoon afterwards. YHOO had wanted to visit Europe; GOOG had insisted on Japan, they’d finally decided to meet halfway in China and India). He sat by his window during the darkest hours of the night, watched the sun beginning to come out of the clouds, and it was only then that he called Goldman Sachs. Listened to the dial tone, waited until the smooth, cultured tone said “Hello” on the other end.

“I can’t go through with this,” GOOG said. “Can't go through with the merger. Could you tell him, please?” And before Goldman could ask him any questions, hung up the phone.

YHOO did not believe Goldman when first told this news. That GOOG wasn't coming after all; that the upcoming merger had been terminated. All the negotiations had been concluded satisfactorily, the contracts drawn up; the news had already spread throughout the investment and tech communities. And GOOG had been the one to initiate the project. Surely he wouldn’t betray YHOO like this, at the last minute? Surely he wouldn't leave YHOO hanging in the boardroom?

And so YHOO waited, the documents that were to be signed gathered neatly in a folder in front of him. The sun came up, it was high noon, and still GOOG didn’t show up, didn’t even call.

That night, YHOO walked home alone. Closed the door behind him, locked it. His apartment was a penthouse on one of the top floors of the NASDAQ. There had been plans for GOOG to move in after the papers had been signed, the deal completed. 

YHOO took a drink from the bar, sat on the sofa and, lights turned off, mindlessly watched the city night outside his floor-to-ceiling windows. He was numb. He had no problem sleeping that night, or the night after. He only had a problem waking up.

The rage didn’t come until a few days later. YHOO was in his office, cleaning through his files, when he came across forgotten paperwork of their merger, one of the first drafts of the 8k filing. His fingers, as they were holding the contract, started to tremble. Suddenly, he was consumed with a hatred so intense that it was like fire burning through his veins, scorching whatever love or affection he might once have felt.

With disgust, YHOO threw the contract into the trash. But the rage he held close, the rage he nursed, guarding it like a jealous mother guarding a newborn son. (It was all he had left now.) A week went by before he saw GOOG again, at a party the NASDAQ threw for all their stocks. GOOG was standing off to the side, an absent look on his face. 

“Hello,” YHOO said, and GOOG turned, his eyes widening.

“YHOO,” GOOG said, his fingers tightening around the stem of his wine glass.

“You seem to be doing well.”

“Yes – yes. Our email program’s been working well, and our ad revenue has increased for the quarter. Things are proceeding better than expected.” There was a silence between them, thick and heavy, that YHOO made no effort to break. “How have you been faring?” GOOG asked finally.

“Oh, quite well. I’ve found a new purpose in life, and it’s worked magnificently in putting things in perspective.”

“A new purpose?”

“Yes,” YHOO said. He picked a champagne glass from the tray that the waiter offered him. Rotated it, took a drink. "A new purpose. I am going to destroy you.” 

To an outsider, perhaps, those words might have sounded needlessly harsh and cruel (for, as the economics professors always say, competition is good, leading all the people involved to greater and more efficient gains; there is no need for hatred in the capitalism arena, it is all just _business_ , after all, nothing _personal_ ). But to YHOO, saying those words seemed necessary. For with those words, he was drawing a line between his present and past; he was proclaiming that the person who had stood in his place just a few weeks ago and desired to merge with GOOG was gone. It was not a premonition of GOOG's death that he was giving voice to, but a declaration of the death of the idealistic internet company that he, YHOO, had started out from.

(Because the final betrayal, you see, isn't the betrayal of love after all, but the betrayal of self, culminating in the destruction of even the memory of what one had been before.)

"I am going to destroy you," YHOO said, and GOOG looked back, calmly, evenly (but there, right there? didn't his fingers tremble slightly? and under his exquisite tan, didn't his skin look a whiter shade of pale?). "You can try." GOOG said. "You can try until you kill yourself. But you won't succeed." And, as if completely unconcerned, turned and walked away.


End file.
